First Images of the Chinese Tianhe-1 Space Station

Recently the Chinese launched the first module of their space station. Currently there is a bit of drama about where the booster will come down, but the station module seems to be doing fine. I am always a bit sad that I never got a chance to image the space shuttle or the ISS in different stages of completion, so I’m hoping I can watch the Tianhe station grow over the next few years.

Since this is only a single module it’s going to be hard to image or see any structure. Even on something as large as the ISS it’s the solar panels that are the most obvious. Hopefully Tianhe-1 will get some solar panels soon to make it more than a simple cylinder.

This morning I had a nice 81 degree pass, but I had no idea about what my camera settings should be. I’ve taken careful notes to dial in my ISS exposure just right, but this was pure guess work. Heavens-Above estimated the brightness at +1, so I used Polaris (around +2) and Arcturus (around 0) to guess at my exposure. I ended up using 0.505ms like I do for the ISS, but set the gain at 450. I used my 8” dobsonian telescope, a 2x barlow lens, and my ZWO ASI290MC camera.

Just like with the ISS I made sure to focus and collimate as well as I could. After looking at my images I think I over exposed slightly, but it’s hard to tell with so little features to see and so much atmospheric noise.

The video of all the frames is no help, it’s just a white blob. This image is one of the only good ones I got right at the top of the pass when I was looking at the station’s broad side. There’s some atmospheric noise that I tried to manually remove (even if that’s cheating a bit).

So I can see the soda can shape of a space station module, but the Tianhe-1 tapers slightly towards one end. I can’t tell if it’s something I want to see or if I’m actually seeing it, but this is how I think the station is oriented.

This station is so small right now it’s at the edge of what I can realistically resolve, so I decided to put it next to the ISS to get a sense of scale. You can tell it’s about the same size as the main Russian segment on the ISS, because they’re almost exactly the same design.

I’m not sure when the Chinese will be launching the next module, or when solar panels will appear, but I’m looking forward to collecting images of its growth!